Almighty Fire

Almighty Fire
Studio album by
Aretha Franklin
ReleasedApril 13, 1978
RecordedJanuary–March 1978
Studios
GenresSoul, R&B
Length34:42
LabelAtlantic (#19161)
ProducerCurtis Mayfield
Aretha Franklin chronology
Sweet Passion
(1977)		 Almighty Fire
(1978)		 La Diva
(1979)
Singles from Almighty Fire
  1. "Almighty Fire (Woman of the Future)"
    Released: April 1978
  2. "More Than Just a Joy"
    Released: July 1978

Almighty Fire is the twenty-fourth studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin, released on April 13, 1978, by Atlantic Records. By the time of the album's release, Franklin was going through a commercial slump.

Franklin was reunited with Curtis Mayfield – who produced the album and composed all the tracks –after their earlier success together with the Sparkle soundtrack.

The title single reached at No. 12 on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart and the follow-up single, "More Than Just a Joy", peaked at No. 51. The album earned a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female at the 1979 Grammy Awards.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusicStarStar
Christgau's Record GuideC+
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album GuideStarHalf star
The Rolling Stone Album GuideStarStar
The Virgin Encyclopedia of R&B and SoulStarStar

The New York Times panned Mayfield's work as "tuneless, fussily arranged songs", but praised Franklin and Turman's "I'm Your Speed" for the space it creates for her to "breathe real fire into the music."

Rolling Stone praised "I'm Your Speed" at length, calling it the album's "one moment of pop music transcendence." It called "No Matter Who You Love" as a standout, but considered the album's arrangements "unglamorous and cheesy," and chastised the music Mayfield brought to the table as "stifling," while comparing it to the excitement of the previous Franklin-Mayfield pairing, 1976's Sparkle.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Curtis Mayfield, except where noted.

Side one

  1. "Almighty Fire (Woman of the Future)" – 4:36
  2. "Lady, Lady" – 2:45
  3. "More Than Just a Joy" – 3:03
  4. "Keep On Loving You" – 3:12
  5. "I Needed You Baby" – 4:38

Side two

  1. "Close to You" – 4:22
  2. "No Matter Who You Love" – 4:01
  3. "This You Can Believe" – 4:46
  4. "I'm Your Speed" (Aretha Franklin, Glynn Turman) – 3:40

Personnel

Production

References

  1. ↑ Almighty Fire at AllMusic
  2. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: F". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved February 24, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  3. ↑ MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Visible Ink Press. 1996. p. 272.
  4. ↑ The Rolling Stone Album Guide. Random House. 1992. p. 262.
  5. ↑ Larkin, Colin (1998). The Virgin Encyclopedia of R&B and Soul. Virgin. p. 128.
  6. ↑ Rockwell, John (April 21, 1978). "The Pop Life". The New York Times. p. C22. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  7. ↑ McEwan, Joe (June 29, 1978). "Almighty Fire". Rolling Stone. No. 268. p. 56.